Fiona Millar on grammar schools in the Grauniad

[samsonagonistes]

This article here is doing my head in on a number of levels, not because I necessarily disagree with it, but mainly because I don't know what I think and I don't know enough about some of the research/thinking behind it to come to a conclusion on my own. So I'd be really grateful for any thoughts and/or pointers.

She's working from the premise that grammar schools are inherently bad, and that this is a clear thing for all right thinking left wing people. Now, when I read MN, I can see that plenty of parents want grammar schools and are fighting to get into them. So I end up feeling about this pretty much as I do about UKIP, that the point is not only/necessarily to condemn them outright, but what would be more useful would be to find out why people feel this way and what is actually going on for them right now. So what's the gap between theory and experience here and why?

Also, she seems to think that the main argument against grammar schools is that they are not engines of social equality. Now, this may be one argument against them, but surely the point of school is to deliver education, with equality of opportunity in achieving that. Lots of other things do not deliver social equality - like private schools, expensive clothes and London house prices to name but a few - but that's never part of the argument against them.

Also - and I am aware that this is going to be controversial - but an argument against their social mobility is that they take reduced numbers on FSM. Now, for this argument to be valid, we would have to assume that IQ is spread absolutely evenly throughout the population.* I would like this to be the case, but has this theory ever been tested/proven?

• and yes I am aware about the cultural relativity of testing, etc etc, but then schools are also culturally relative in that they privilege theater and art over other activities and there are so many knots in this problem that it's hard to disentangle.

You might want to change your username there.

Do you not agree that the Kent system is useless then?

Every single grammar school thread we have is completely derailed by moaning about Kent which is pointless since everyone who posts in these threads has long since accepted that the Kent system doesn't work.

[sigh]

Read the op. Kent is a very good example to base any answers to the op on. Not sure why you despise Kent so much?

The ratio of GS:NGS for NI is v. similar to Kent's.

I have long suspected that the Independent schools in Kent are the main reason that the state schools don't do better.

No Independent schools (well, one or 2) in NI.

There are a whopping 21 Independent senior schools in Kent!

Would anyone care to discuss the impact that this undoubtably will have when we look at the stats for state educated DC in Kent.?

Let me make it clear: Take all those kids out of their Independent schools, stick them in the non-selective schools and voila, the situation in Kent doesn't look that bad after all. It looks like the situation in NI which is BETTER that all comp counties in England.

OR, put them in the grammars, shuffle the kids in the grammar around a bit moving some of them to the non-selectives = BETTER results across the board for Kent.

pickled - certainly the private schools where I live have a material impact on the stateschools (unlike the single SS in the region).

Theoretical - I don't despise Kent. I find people who are obsessed with Kent somewhat trying. May of those people seem to despise the Kent education system if not the actual Kent itself, it must be said. And then they object after they win people round to their point of view.

pickled - purely anecdotally, all the children that I know that go to independent day secondaries in Kent do so as they have failed the 11+. I don't know how this would skew the middle to lower ability bands in state?

Theoretical, GS's aren't on the agenda for many that attend independent schools in Kent with perhaps Cranbrook School as the exception (IME).

Not sure what you are referring to there Gently.

People that live in Kent and are putting their children through the education system comment on it, on grammar threads. Especially where the grammar thread asks about the effect on social mobility and equality.

Not sure what the problem is, tbh.

Ah ok pickled, different to my experience. Everyone I know that has children at private primaries are aiming for the 11+, those that fail go to private secondaries.

One of the SSs in Kent has a 42% intake from private primaries.

I don't think anyone minds the good folk of Kent commenting on it.

But the refusal to allow discussion of any other areas, the dismissal of views on super selectives as 'twaddle' is a bit dull for everyone.

www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/apr/27/grammar-schools-intake-kent

Apologies if the twaddle comment irked. I do find on MN that some people with bright/superbright/SS attending kids do want to shoehorn their thing into any education thread, whether it's relevant or not. It's just a shame when we near discussing what the op mentions, ie the effect of grammar schools on social mobility and equality, that it veers off on the same old minority track again.

Maybe I find this irksome in the way some find Kent.

Word - I mind when they try to close down all other relevant discussion, or dismiss NI as 'not real'. I also find it perplexing when having painted a picture of - as you so succintly put it - Kent as a wale of tears, they get annoyed when we accept that depiction and say ok, we agree they must be right.

Bloody keyboard. Vale of tears. Or if you prefer wail of tears. Either works probably.

I have ost count of the number of grammar school threads that have been hijacked into talking exclusively about Kent. Since everyone agrees the Kent system is rubbish, surely there are more productive avenues to explore.

You can talk to me directly Gently, not through Word, it's a bit passive aggressive.

Vale of tears is patronising and rude, as is what you have posted. Can you not see that? I haven't said its a dreadful place to grow up, at all.

I also didn't say NI wasn't real. I said Kent was.

I'd be more than happy to hear about Bucks and Lincs, FWIW.

When I addressed a comment to Word that was because I was talking to - surprise surprise - word. She made a comment and I commented on it.

I have family and friends who live in Thanet. It is most certainly a dreadful place to grow up. They are all in complete accord.

Your comment about Kent being real (your emphasis) was assinine. It's not more and no less real than anywhere else.

I provided cmparative figures for Bucks and Lincs and you ignored them. Which somewhat belies your statement that you are interested in them.

I think I shall leave you to talk about Kent since you clearly have no interest in doing anything else.

I think discussion of super selectives and social mobility are inherently entwined as they are the only schools which give the selective private schools a run for their money.

Comprehensives have not helped social mobility in the UK. Even Blair's Education x 3 policy didn't help, and say what you like about that administration, the political will was there as was the money.

I don't think we'll see another era like that where the country was so solidly behind the attempt to bring social change via education.

Sadly it was not successful.

For me, social mobility is not only about improving matters for the very poor and vulnerable. It's about change at the top. Challenging the status quo. And I think super selectives play a part here. And sure, at the moment there are not enough poor kids in them (that's not a reason to give up on them though, surely?) but there are lots of children in them who are very far removed from the elite.

I'm happy to move away from talking about Kent if it annoys, and talk about Selectivia, which is an amalgamation of the grammar counties.

How can we get that data from behind the paywall?

I didn't mean to ignore the Bucks and Lincs figures, I must've missed that. I am half working and dipping in & out.

In terms of the real comment - I meant I suppose that so often a tiny place like Sutton, or somewhere like Hampshire with its fantastic comprehensives is used for comparison - and it is not like for like.

Gently - OK I have found your post about Bucks and Lincs and I did see it. I didn't comment on it as I had nothing to add. I'd like to hear more about Bucks and Lincs, to understand more.

Is it necessary to reply to every post, esp if it's not directed at me? Why did you ask me about which schools my children attend? You didn't answer that one.

I don't understand what relevance N. Ireland has to how things are likely to go in the UK if we ever bring back a grammar school system, because N. Ireland has a whole load of issues we don't have on the mainland, people have different concerns and considerations in their lives and I get the impression it is a more conservative society in general - it is far from being just another county of the UK... It is, basically, colossally unlikely that if a grammar school system were reintroduced to the UK it would look like the one in N. Ireland. NONE of our schools are like schools in N. Ireland... It's like saying results are better in Singapore, so we should recreate the Singaporean system in the UK... It doesn't work like that. Kent, however, being a Home County with results that are not outstandingly different from the results obtained by other counties, IS an interesting advert for how other counties may look if they reintroduce grammar schools and secondary moderns to the extent they have them in Kent (and N. Ireland)...